The present invention is generally related to telecommunications. More specifically, the present invention is related to reducing the risk related to receiving compensation for telephone services by enhancing the ability to identify a billing entity associated with a party receiving such services, e.g., properly billing a called party of an alternatively billed telephone call.
Telephone callers have various payment options available for placing a telephone call. Some of these billing options include, calling cards, pre-paid calling cards, third party billing, credit cards, collect calling, etc. Although a few of these alternative billing mechanisms have only been available recently, many of these options have been provided by telecommunication companies for several years.
Since the divestiture of North America""s telecommunication market, there has been an increase in the amount of participants throughout the various fields of the industry; both facilities and non-facilities based. Additional competitors, e.g., CLECs, have joined incumbent local exchange carriers (LECs), local service providers (LSPs), line resellers, service providers, etc., in the telephony market.
While expanded competition has arguably benefitted the public, an undesired result has included many, often confusing, choices of service providers. The increase in competition has also disrupted the fluidity of the telecommunications market that existed before divestiture for both the consumer and the market participant. One area affected by the increased amount of competitors in the telephone market is billing. A customer could potentially receive a separate billing statement for services received from each subscribed telephone service provider. Additionally, some market participants do not have the ability to sufficiently identify the end customer receiving its service.
Convergence or composite billing is an attempt to address and resolve some of these issues by providing one consolidated communications bill to the customer. The composite bill comprises charges incurred by the customer having a variety of telephone service providers, e.g., local, long distance, Internet, cell phone, paging, alternative billing, etc. This single communication bill is compiled and sent to the customer by a billing entity ultimately responsible for billing the customer. For example, a customer may contract with two different service providers for local and long distance service even though these service providers may be competitors in both local and long distance markets. One of these service providers, or perhaps some other company, is ultimately responsible as the billing entity for providing one complete telephone communications bill to the customer. The other service providers will receive compensation dependent upon their respective business relationship with the billing entity.
Due to some complexities involved with convergence billing, many industry participants may be susceptible to revenue losses because of the inability to identify the ultimate billing entity responsible for billing the party receiving its services. It is important for service providers seeking compensation to adequately identify the billing entity associated with the customer receiving such services to avoid monetary loses resulting from an unpaid service.
Presently, many phone companies utilize a line information database, LIDB, for acquiring information associated with a telephone number. LIDBs provide a variety of information. Some of the information stored in the LIDB relates to billing entities associated with telephone numbers. This information can be obtained directly, or indirectly, from fields such as operating company numbers (OCNs), account owner (AO), originating line number screening (OLNS), line providers, alternative billing services, number portability, calling features, etc. Typically, LIDB owners charge a fee to subscribers for accessing the information compiled within the LIDB.
An alternatively billed call, e.g., collect call, is a service provided to telephone customers wherein another party, e.g., called party, is billed for the call as opposed to the routinely billed calling party or originating line number. Upon receiving a request for a collect call, the telephone company ultimately responsible for billing, i.e., billing entity, the calling party will attempt to identify the billing entity ultimately responsible for billing the called party. This information is often obtainable through the LIDB. If the identity of the called party""s billing entity is not obtainable, the caller""s telephone company may be reluctant to connect the call between the parties. Because of the risk involved with connecting a collect call to a called party having an unidentified billing entity, many callers"" billing entities may choose not to complete the connection for the call and thus, forgo potential revenues. This loss of revenue may be due to the inability to accurately bill for services provided or the perception that the called party to be billed is not a credit worthy consumer. Regardless, potential revenues associated with unbillable and uncollected collect calls are deferred, perhaps never to be realized.
This invention is directed to solving these and other problems.
The present invention is directed to a method of acquiring the identity of a telephone company of a called party receiving a collect telephone call. Proper identification of the called party""s billing entity reduces the risk associated with uncollectable charges for services provided.
One embodiment of the present invention is a method for determining a billing entity ultimately responsible for billing a called party of an alternatively billed telephone call. The method comprises receiving a telephone number associated with the called party. An entity identifier associated with the telephone number is acquired. An OLNS query is invoked to a LIDB database associated with the telephone number of the called party. An OCN is received in response to the OLNS query. The entity identifier is replaced with the OCN returned from the OLNS query.
A further aspect of the present invention includes updating a negative database with information gathered during determination of the identity of the billing entity.